Delivering The Experience: System Design & Deployment For Star Wars With The NY Philharmonic

Balancing Dynamics

Capturing the orchestra was about selective reinforcement with respect to orchestration, the creation of an environment for a complicated mixture of live and recorded material.

It was designed to ensure that effects, underscoring, and individual instruments prominently featured on the original recordings weren’t lost, without requiring the remainder of the orchestra to depart dramatically from the established dynamics that are central to the power of the soundtrack.

Some vocal/sound effects (material that varied from film to film) were generated by samples triggered by a keyboardist and captured via an on stage stereo system.

One of the K-array KR102 slim arrays deployed on stage, with companion subwoofer.

Also varying by film was microphone deployment, and overall, they were used sparingly – only when balance, a specific request from the composer, or the need to highlight lower volume instruments was a necessity.

Most commonly, a Neumann KM 184 or Sennheiser MKH 8040 cardioid condenser captured harp, four DPA d:screet 4061s (miniature omnis) or a combination of two 4061s and two d:vote 4099s (supercardioid condensers) were applied to piano, AKG C414 condensers handled marimba, and more Neumann 184s served as percussion overheads. Alto flute, English horn, oboe and bassoon were also captured with Sennheiser 8040s. “I’m a big fan of that microphone,” Mannarino says. “I have a dozen of them and generally they’re my ‘go-to’ live orchestral mic.”

Click track was provided but only used intermittently, he adds. “We ran a Shure PSM 900 wireless system transmitter for the maestro (David Newman), fed the click to that, and provided him with a cut-off switch because we didn’t want the click to be resonant on stage, but he wanted it specifically for certain things. We also used the same system to send click to the in-ear monitors – basically one receiver and two sets of ‘ears’ per stand.”

For monitoring, the ability to adjust volume was important for the conductor and the instrumentalists. Consequently, dual Anchor AN-1000x compact powered monitors with external volume controls were deployed for Newman, with eight Galaxy Hot Spot compact monitors (powered by an Electro-Voice TG7 amplifier) for the brass, string and reed sections. Additionally, two coaxial K-array KF12s provided monitoring for the piano and percussion players, and a pair K-array Pinnacle KR202s columns, one per side, supplied stage fill.

“The maestro got dialogue and source music, the monitors for percussion and piano offered time alignment for specific cues and, generally, the Hot Spots were fed dialogue while the side fills supplied samples/keyboards for the orchestra,” he explains.

Even so, some changes were made in terms of dynamics and instrumentation, while composer John Williams also recreated some of the music – because the orchestra was live – to embellish the score, with Mannarino adding that he worked with the maestro, artistic director and others on making beneficial musical adjustments.

The view of the three-tired coverage area presented by David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center.

Where It’s Going

He mixed both front of house and monitors with a Midas PRO 2 digital console, using an iPad to generate the monitor mixes and then marking monitor moves per scene and triggering them when needed.

Although those moves were generally predetermined, he continues: “I did make adjustments based on the orchestra’s performance if I heard things pulling apart and knew someone needed something. I also used Midas DN9650s [network bridges] with MADI for record, which went to the recording studio, and a Dante interface that went to specific speaker units and other outputs.”

In looking at the details and technology that went into pulling these shows off successfully, Mannarino says, laughing: “You could dig deeper and deeper and not stop, but I think this is where our industry is going: audio and mixed media.

It’s an application that involves extremely close collaboration between composers, conductors, instrumentalists, sound designers and engineers. “Every word, every note, is a marriage between the maestro and the audio engineer,” he states. “Composers are learning that spatial and immersive audio are tools and my goal has been to make that more understandable for them,” he says, adding that this Star Wars series demonstrates how positive similar ventures can be for business: “We had a success here. People came from all over the world.”

Going forward, extending that success requires living up to a standard that’s increasingly set not just by the audience experiences in movie theaters, but – given the sophistication of modern home theater systems and resulting higher audience expectations – by their experiences in their living rooms at home as well.

“We have to make the experience better than that,” Mannarino concludes. “We have to combine the live experience with the recorded experience in a space – a variable space – that feels intimate when necessary and huge in a way it doesn’t in their homes. We have to make it sensational.”